


The Coil of Ribs Heats Up

by newredshoes



Category: Henry IV Part 1 - Shakespeare, The Hollow Crown (2012), The Hollow Crown RPF
Genre: AO3 1 Million, F/M, References to Shakespeare, Roleplay, Sexual Roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 15:38:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1190529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newredshoes/pseuds/newredshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe doesn't usually play people he wants to be in bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Coil of Ribs Heats Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eudaimon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eudaimon/gifts).



> Once upon a time I emailed you out of the blue asking for something to write. You said, _They're already dating but it's not really settled into place yet; Michelle's surprised by the difference between Joe and Hotspur when it matters._ This is what happened. Hope you like it.  <3

He shows up on her doorstep long after they've both had dinner, with an angry gash across one cheek and a bottle of wine.

"No, it's not that interesting, I promise." When Michelle presses him for the story, he laughs and drops his eyes. "Just bad timing during rehearsal. I charged in while Tom was still swinging."

She tugs at the corkscrew. "Oh my god, what did he do?"

"Could not stop apologizing." Joe shakes his head. "You'd have thought he took my eye out, the way he was going on!” Then, a little bit proud of himself: “I told him it was authentic and we shouldn't be stopping."

"Poor Tom." She crooks an eyebrow. "That was very method of you."

"I'll have no idea who I am by the end of this shoot." He holds out a hand, and she gratefully turns the bottle over. She watches his wrist and forearm as he works the corkscrew. When the cork comes out, it's with a soft little gasp, not a showy _pop!_

"Can we rehearse tonight?" she asks as he pours her a glass.

He gives her a wry look. "We rehearse a lot."

"It doesn't have to be lines." She smirks, pointedly.

"Oh, well, if _that's_ what you're saying, by all means."

They do run the scene a few times. The anger and the fear and the tension are hard to summon with a bellyful of red. Each round, after she pulls him to the couch, it takes longer and longer to stop kissing, to become actors again and think about what they've done. He follows her lead, like a dare: she kisses him as a wife would, and he won't slip back into himself unless she does. Michelle wonders how he can be so careful all the time, so concerned with the perfect take.

(She knows the answer, of course; it works for him. She's known him, what, two months at the outside? But that he's good has always been obvious. He can't give any less.)

"I think you should come to bed with me," she says, as the idea's still forming. She's pressed on top of him, hands tucked beneath her like cat's paws.

He grins, all Joe. His fingers play over her spine. "Sounds lovely."

"Mm. But we're still rehearsing."

"Are we?"

"Yes." She hooks a fingertip in the neck of his t-shirt. "Hear me out."

At once he knits his brow. His hands go still. "This is going to be a cliché, isn't it."

"We're already a cliché." She steals another kiss. He still tastes like wine. They'll be filming Shrewsbury first, maybe a week from now, so he's scruffier than his usual. Michelle loves the rasp of his skin on hers. "What do you think?" she asks as they pull apart.

His mouth thins. "I don't know."

"You ever done it before?"

He laughs; he'd squirm if he could. "I don't usually play people I want to be in bed."

"First time for everything."

Joe lifts his eyebrows.

Michelle pushes herself upright, and says archly, "I'll have you know that Lady Mary is a tiger in the sack."

"Sure, but—"

"But what?" She leans back down and strokes the hair at his temple. He's not looking at her. "You're thinking something."

"I'm not." His mouth quirks. "I'm just really selfish about sex."

 _I want it to be me you're with,_ she hears, and she gets that. She traces the cut on his cheek, the raised scratch. He doesn't flinch. "What happened with Tom today?"

"Nothing. A mistake."

"Yeah, careless, right?" She smiles as his eyes flick onto hers. "You don't get careless. But you saw an opening, didn't you. You didn't want to stop."

"Are you calling me suggestible?"

She pokes him in the chest. "Yea, my lord. I see you swaggering during the breaks."

That horrifies him. "Do I swagger?"

"You do." She pushes her sleeves back up over her elbows, a little smug. "Like you're always wearing leather pants."

"Oh my god." He starts to laugh again, and lets his head drop back onto the couch cushion. "You know he's a parody, right?"

"Joe." She slides lower down his hips.

"I mean, no one in the world is that manly, that's the whole point." He starts to gesticulate. "And it's not like that ends well for him. He's not a real—"

She chuckles. "I'm not saying I want you to get in there and be a caveman."

That stops him. "He's not a caveman," he says, a hair indignant.

"Thought this over, have you?"

Joe studies her face. "What are you plotting?"

Michelle shrugs. "A game."

"But rehearsing."

"I think it'll help." She leans closer. "Also, I would really enjoy it. But you have to say yes because you want to try it."

"Go on, then."

She starts tracing patterns over his chest. "Oh, I'm not going to give you instructions. What do you think I'm here for?"

Joe slips both index fingers under the waistband of her jeans. "Do we still go in there if I say no?"

"'Course we do. I like you quite a lot, you know."

"That's a relief." He lies there for a moment, chewing his lip. She's seen him acting: she's seen him with every thought and impulse flickering over his face. Joe is so guarded. Even when he looks up at her, still quiet, she can't tell what he's going to say. 

But what he says is, "All right."

She sits up. "Yeah?"

He pushes himself up onto his elbows. "Yeah."

"All right." Now she feels it up her spine, that fizz of anticipation. Now she has to be a professional, to ask of herself no less than she's asking of him, not to overthink it, not to plan it out first.

She's still giddy when she climbs off him and offers him a hand off the couch. She laughs when he pulls her forward and hauls himself upright, because that moment is tiny vaudeville, and because she can't wait to see what's coming, and because she has to shake herself out of herself. This is not Kate, who is not cute or silly or much of a goofball. But Michelle loves being Kate, and she loves being Kate with Joe.

She leads him barefoot through the flat. Already she wants her hands all over him; she wants to feel his muscles move and shift in his arms and shoulders. But she's getting ahead of herself. 

She stops him at the door to her bedroom and blocks the way, grinning. "We should set up some rules."

Joe shrugs, and pulls a face, which makes Michelle giggle despite herself. "You know I trust you," he says.

"I do, but it's lovely to hear you say it." She lifts her eyebrows. "No, seriously: if it's not working for you, just say so, all right?"

He shakes his head, bemused. "You're pretty excited."

She presses herself to him. "Well, I like you rather a lot."

"Good, 'cause I like you too."

"Good." She kisses him, Joe, and takes a step back. "Stage rules, then?"

He cracks his knuckles against the heel of his palm. "I'm game."

"Do you want go in first, or should we both, or—?"

He shakes his head, but he's smiling wide. "You go on in. I'll meet you."

Michelle raises herself up on her toes, her eyes crinkling. "Okay."

One smooth twist on the ball of her foot and she strides into her room, chin high. The lights are off, but there's still some light coming in from the hall. She watches as Joe's shadow steps to the side, out of the way. Michelle pauses at the foot of her bed, fingertips resting on the quilt. She gathers herself and puts that into one corner, watching. She pulls Kate in, feels her stir and slip into place: her heart, her station, her fights with Harry, her tics. She inhales, and thinks on the language, the patterns they're armed with, the words.

Michelle breathes out, and pulls the chain on her bedside lamp. It's a small glow, a soft brightness that doesn't reach the edges of the room. She sits against the mattress. He doesn't come in.

She feels her jaw go hard. She opens the drawer on the table and roots around. With too-precise movements, she sets the lube on top, then the condoms, then straightens them. That nervous energy isn't going anywhere. Abruptly she gets to her feet and begins to pace beside the bed.

"Kate? How now, what's this?"

And there he is, strolling in as easy as you please, as if the room wasn't there without him.

She throws up her hands. "Now thou come'st! What kept thee, my lord, when my need was known to thee?"

He wanders the perimeter, unperturbed. "What need is that?"

"Rogue, go to, I'll teach thee what!"

She gets in one sock to his shoulder before he catches her wrist between both palms, a soldier's gambit. His hold is warmth, not pressure.

"Peace, my lady, a minute, pray! Straight from the field and this is my welcome?"

"From the field, art thou?" She reaches for the cut on his cheek. "Thou'st fetched me a gift."

He lets go of her. "Love, a trifle."

Her mouth thins. "Thou'rt so careless of me."

"Of thee? 'Tis I who bears the scratch!"

"But I the fretting." When she takes his face between her hands, he sighs and fights her to look away. "Harry," she warns, and the tips of her fingernails dig in behind his jaw. 

Still he wrests himself back; she sees the faint red streaks she leaves on his throat. "Thy need is forgot right quick when we might find some fault with me," he grumbles. 

She snorts. "Give my need credit. I may hold several in my head at once."

"Is that where thy need lives?"

"I know not. Where hast thou found it of old?"

He laughs. It's nothing like Joe's laugh somehow, but it feels so comfortable to her. "Grant me a gift," he says, and wraps his arms about her waist. "Absolve us both of thy fretting; I've had words enough rained down on me for this scrape."

"Never have I heard a more contrite demand." She wants to fight him, intellectually, but his body is so solid against hers. He smells just enough of the soap from his shower, of the cigarette he smoked before he came. She rests her fingertips against his chest and taps gently, in sequence.

"Let me also remind thee that I brought wine," he adds, his crooked teeth and crooked smile so close.

"Twice gracious, my lord," she says, her lips curling. "Yet if I wanted wine I'd be asking for it."

That's when she buries her fingers in the curls at the base of his neck, and they meet each other in the middle of the kiss, and Michelle has to stop herself from planning the next ten moves she'll make, because this, _this,_ feels so good.

Already her breathing is changing, those deep, cyclical breaths that mean she'll be dark-eyed and feral soon. She fists his t-shirt from underneath, his belly bumping against her knuckles. She pulls so hard the cotton stretches, exposing more of his clavicle, his neck. For a moment she thinks they might end up against her dresser, or the wall, or that Joe might be panicking. It's only a few steps to the bed. If she can get him there—

But Joe doesn't break. Even in rehearsals, it's someone else who gets the giggles first. When she pulls back and meets those huge blue eyes, when he rumbles, "Good my lady, some help?", that smile they share before she pulls his shirt up over his head, that sets her at ease, slows her down, puts her back in the moment. Why would she not be? Harry Percy is nothing if not presence, and by God, she'll meet him thence.

"My lord," she murmurs, and slides both hands below the waistband of his pants. "If thou wilt not have me fast," and here she squeezes a little, "I'll have thee first."

"Faith," he chuckles, "give me reason to fend thee off." He's already unbuttoning her top with quick, sure movements. Michelle leans close to nip and kiss at the crook of his shoulder, right where his throat joins the dip at his collarbone. She feels his skin humming when he says, "Arms." She lifts, arching her back, tits against his chest, as he pulls the shirt away. She's ready to wriggle past the rolled-up elbows caught at her wrists, but Joe, guilelessly, twists the blouse around his fist and smiles.

Michelle begins to laugh. "Villain!"

He grins, and steps aside to lead her backwards to the bed. She bumps against the mattress. "Set me loose," she says, and how low her voice goes on its own.

Joe loops one arm about her waist from behind. "Not yet," he murmurs, just below her ear, and pulls them both further onto the bed.

Now he sets to opening her jeans, first the button, then the brass zipper. Michelle tips her head back onto his shoulder. He takes his cue, pressing himself even closer as he kisses along her neck. He's so warm, and she wants to be warmer. Her eyes slip shut as his fingers play over her knickers: a slow roll, a statement of intent.

He lets go of her shirt. She rids herself of it, and sits up to peel off her jeans. When she leans into him, he's clicking open the lid of the lube. She swipes her thumb over the stubble along his jaw.

"Harry…"

"Patience, love."

She laughs again, that he would ask patience of her. He interrupts her with a kiss, and while she's focused on his lips, his tongue, his hand pushing her hair from the nape of her neck, his slick fingers slide between her legs, and she grins.

At first she watches his hand moving beneath her pants, the bones of his wrist and the hair along his forearms. A soft noise escapes her, halfway between a moan and a sigh. Michelle feels herself starting to go loose, as his fingers circle her folds and brush against her clit.

Too teasing. Insistent, she angles her hips, sliding further down against him. _"Harry."_ She plants her hands on the quilt, one of either side of his thighs.

He leans away; she feels the huff of his laugh against her shoulder. "Kate."

If he thinks she'll be mollified by the kisses up each vertebra, even though they send heat shooting up her spine, she'll correct him. Just as she's ready to take his hand in hers, to put him in the place she needs, his hand snakes over her belly. She just has time to shiver before the pressure from his fingers builds, quite suddenly. "Oh!"

"I'm listening," he sing-songs as she grasps the sheets for purchase.

"God, _God,_ I'll have vengeance." She rolls toward him, humming. Now he's found her, and how.

"Shall I hear of this vengeance?" he murmurs as he works.

"I'll teach thee of it after I am home." Her breath hitches, and her vision starts to ravel at the edges. Her thighs shake, and the bowl of her hips. "God's me, Harry, lay on!"

She's clenching around his finger as soon as he slides it in. Michelle is aware of other things, of the softness of her quilt, of the urgency of her panting, of Joe running his knuckles up her sternum, kneading her breast. All that is swallowed up in the other sense, that she's swollen, aching, hungry, wet. She moans as he curls his finger, grinds against him as he slips in a second.

"Go to, my love," he growls, and Michelle can feel it bearing down on her, so close. She hunches forward, plants her palms, chases the end, curses for it. When she comes, it slams into her, a delicious drop, wordless, pulsing. Joe pulls his hand away and she leans back into him, floating and well pleased. Soon she twists, grinning, and pushes him down to the bed.

"I'd rather face thee."

"Even this face?"

"Tush, 'tis a face that brings me gladness."

She kisses him, slow and thorough. Their ribs bump with each breath; his right hand is still wet and sticky from her. Michelle's knickers feel stretched, cumbersome, too close when she's so sensitive. She rolls away to pull them off, then rests her hand on his zipper, smiling.

"Wherefore is this still in my way?"

He pushes himself up on his elbows, the twist of his mouth wry. "Marry, poor planning and ill will."

"Heavens." She steals another kiss. "We'll mend that straight off."

Joe hooks a finger in the center of her bra. "And this?" His expression is so hopeful, she scoffs as she sits back on her heels.

He’s already half-hard when she opens up his jeans. She palms him thoughtfully through the cotton, her head at a cant, then strokes up the shaft. 

Michelle bites her lip. The corners of her eyes crinkle.

Joe lifts his eyebrows. "Vengeance, m’lady?"

Shucking him of trousers and pants becomes a joint effort, one that ends with them face to face on their knees, she cupping his arse with great relish, he finally tossing her bra aside.

She leans close, her nipples brushing against him. "I know my thoughts," she murmurs, and wets her lips. "Tell me thine own, my lord."

"'Zounds, I am an open book." He brushes strands of hair clear of her face. "I think on thee, on my need." She arches into him as he strokes the soft undersides of her breasts. That's Joe; Harry would trust her aggression more. But he's doing so beautifully so far. She loves the words, she loves the accent, she loves the way his face changes.

"My own Kate," he concludes, as she pulls them together, hip to hip. The name trips into a rough growl.

Michelle's fingernails dig into his skin again. "So much talk," she growls back.

Joe pauses. She wonders for a moment if she should have said it. "No care for my thoughts after all?" he muses, and she hears the mockery in it.

He has her on her back so fast she bounces on the mattress. She yelps, delighted, as he catches himself just above her. "Yet I'll speak plainly," he says, all conspiracy, and leaning so close their noses bump.

In this, Harry Percy has the patience of a siege. He bombards her with sensation: hands, teeth, lips, legs — the press of his torso shifting beside hers — the tug on her scalp as he fists her hair. Michelle grunts — she laughs — she cries out. She berates him to fill her up and quench her, to grant her satisfaction, damn his blue eyes, but not yet, not when she can skirt her own edge close and closer still.

They'll find marks in the morning, other tokens of battle. She notices the scratch on his cheek again, while he's between her legs, dragging her further and further from the use of words. Michelle rounds on him. She pulls him off her by the hair on the crown of his head; he blinks, irate to be interrupted. When she surges forward and claims her kiss, roughly, she tastes herself all over his mouth.

He breaks off with a short gasp. She makes sure he sees her smiling as she closes her hand around his balls. "God, yes," he moans, his voice roughshod. "Please, go, yes."

She keeps her hand on him as she makes her way down his chest and stomach, kissing the broad, strong lines, inhaling the scent of him, licking and feeling him shiver and tighten and thrum. The muscles in his belly are already twitching. She grins and nuzzles his cock. He arches up toward her. "Kate!"

She takes a moment to shift herself, turned head-to-foot so she's within reach alongside him. At once he spreads his hand over the back of her thigh. He'll put bruises and scratches there soon enough. She kisses the inside of his leg, an acknowledgment. After that, her mouth is bent on driving him past speech.

Michelle neglects nothing, and under her, he unspools. She's always been very proud of her blowjobs. To bring men down with the wet flat of her tongue, with a ring of pressure from her lips, with a ruthless suckling, a brush of her fingers, a delicate lick — she loves it. She loves the head-trip; she loves the helpless noises he makes. As Hotspur, Joe babbles: that he's able to do so in the accent, in their bastard poetry, even now, sets her wilder and more wanting than ever.

If she's not careful, she'll tip him too far, but she and Kate are careful creatures both. Before his breathing goes quick and shallow, before he cannot choose, she draws back and tends to him with her hand. "Harry."

"What?" His voice cracks a little, needful and high.

"I must beg of thee a favor."

He swallows. "Anything."

She presses a kiss to the jut of his hipbone. "Love, I've such a welcome for thee." She tilts her hips toward him. "I want myself so full of thee—"

He's already sitting up and fumbling for the condoms. "Think'st thou to beg as though I'd be indifferent?” His brow knits in consternation. “The devil himself would lay him at thy feet!"

She fishes the bottle of lube from somewhere within the sheets, laughing. "Quick, quick, then!"

He smirks fit for them both. "Nay, love, not _so_ quick."

Michelle loves to watch him put the condom on, the sure, precise movements of his fingers over his own cock. She's beaming as she lays down a line of lube, savoring one more opportunity to run her hand over him. When he leans in to take her earlobe between his teeth, she forgets herself and wraps her arms about his neck. Joe has to wait out her giddy laughter before he can guide himself in, but he takes it in good humor, mock-ordering her to cooperate. When he slides in and fits so well, her eyes slip shut for a moment.

"That's… mm."

She hooks her ankles behind his back, but when he starts to sit up, she opens her eyes. He smiles and rubs the sides of her calves.

"Legs," he says calmly, settling onto his knees.

"In faith?" It's been quite a while since she tried this one, and that boyfriend had not been delicate about it. She bites her lip, then tries to maneuver so she won't kick him in the face. With encouragement, she arranges one ankle over each of his shoulders. Joe strokes her thighs and leans in, slowly.

Michelle's breath hitches. That's more of him than she's ever taken in. It sends her heart pounding, and she can feel herself tightening around him. She tries to breathe deep, to open herself up, to relax. This hurts, a little, but she can glimpse the pleasure from here. She glances up at Joe.

There it is, every hope and feeling flickering over his face. He's holding still, waiting as a soldier can. Stage rules. She trusts him. She inhales, ribs expanding, and nods. Slowly, slowly, he rolls inside her.

_Oh._

Oh, but this is right, even with the adjustments, even with the false starts. When Joe murmurs "I'll see to thee," she knows how safe she is, and that she can let him. Surrender is hard work for Michelle, but for Kate and Harry, she gets it, how it's a promise they trade off and switch with each other. She’ll chase it, if it doesn’t find her first.

Christ, _God,_ but he's found her G-spot. That first thrust that connects, she cries out, raggedly, then begs him to stay there. God, the heat of him there, the fine construction of him pressing all against her. 

Joe too is only just lashing himself together. So often he buries his face in her shoulder when he comes, but there's no hiding for him above her between her legs. She locks eyes with him, and there's something ferocious in his expression that seizes her, that she goads with each thrust of her hips. If they talk, it's nonsense, barely articulate noises to carry them toward the crest. She has him engulfed, all of him in all of her, and they fill each other so fucking well, and—

She hears herself howling in the lead-up, but the orgasm barrels into her and shakes her, inch by quaking inch through and through. Her hearing whites out, save for the frantic tattoo of her blood. Every nerve in her skin crackles with sensation: the movement of air, the crumpled sheets, the sweat beading between her breasts. 

She's still limp and hazy with aftershocks when Joe follows, loudly, his eyes screwed shut. He stutters forward, clinging to her legs. The room goes quiet save for the sound of their panting. When she’s back in herself enough, she notices him searching her face. She holds out her arms and beckons him in. He pushes her ankles aside and comes to her, pressing himself close and breathing deep.

They lie like that together, until he pulls out and tosses the condom. He settles in on his side, his expression too elated for bemusement.

"What was that?" he asks, and this is Joe, Joe himself, who strokes the hair at Michelle's temple.

She reaches for his side and pulls them closer. "Quite something, I thought," she says, and he huffs, one short laugh, before he kisses her. "I will tell you something, though," she continues, tracing patterns just beneath his collarbone. "You can't ever be shy with me again. I am never letting you off the hook now."

He wrinkles his nose, still playful. "Oh, here's the catch."

"No catch!" She burrows closer, with a happy sigh. "I just love it when you ask for what you want."

At that, he drapes one arm over her waist. What she wants to say, what she might say in the morning, is that he needn't care so desperately, that he shouldn't worry if he's being himself right with her. That he makes her happy without qualifications, and he has nothing to prove to anyone. She glances up and catches him watching her. It takes her aback for a moment: he's as open as she's ever seen him, looking at her like Harry Percy does.

"I like you quite a lot," he says. His fingers play over the small of her back.

She swipes her thumb over his rough cheek, beneath the angry cut. "Joe," she says, herself, "I really like you too."

**Author's Note:**

> All the thanks to Adiva for her cheerleading and to Kat for her beta and assurances. The title comes from ["Yes," by Catherine Doty](http://newredfic.tumblr.com/post/76692163079/yes), and I suspect a few other things came from that poem too.


End file.
